M6:730 — چون نمردی گشت جان کندن دراز / مات شو در صبح ای شمع طراز

This couplet is a direct command within a larger argument about the Prophet's saying, "Die before you die." Rumi argues that the long, painful process of spiritual striving (jān kandan, literally 'soul-struggling' or 'agony') persists only because one has not fully surrendered the ego.

The imagery is precise. The "elegantly formed candle" (shamʿ-e ṭarāz) represents the beautiful, well-adorned individual self. It has its own light and form, but its purpose is to illuminate the darkness of night. When the true "dawn" (ṣubḥ)—the light of Divine reality—arrives, the candle's small, personal light becomes redundant and invisible. To resist this is pointless. Rumi uses the chess term "checkmated" (māt shō) to convey a state of complete, final surrender. The candle doesn't fight the sun; it is simply and totally overwhelmed by a greater reality. The 'death' Rumi advocates is this willing effacement of the ego's light in the presence of the Absolute.